Settling
by iliveatlast
Summary: "He asked if I'd be at the school, when it starts." "Well. What did you say?" "I said I'd never been to school and he said it was illegal." "You've been home schooled, darling. It's not illegal." "Am I still home schooled?" "Well. We'd have to talk about that." Harry looked at her expectantly, and she realized he wanted to talk about that now. 3rd in Mother's Love Verse.


Even though Harry had lived in a school all his life, he'd never been a student at one before. He'd had lessons, yes, with Minerva and Fillius, Albus when he had time, with Lily herself (_and with Severus,_ a small voice in the back of her head reminded her), but he had always been the only pupil, and the lessons had, in their own way, been remarkably slapdash. He had a decent grounding in Latin, but not a lick of science. He actually enjoyed advanced Arithmancy (Lily didn't know anyone else who actually enjoyed advanced Arithmancy), but his lower level maths were thin. He read, as Lily (_and Severus_) always had, any book he was handed, but Hogwarts had never had books on Muggle maths or science or history, and suddenly that was all Harry wanted to learn about.

After a week and a half with Petunia, Lily had somehow found herself settling in Lower Lydd, on the Romney Marsh. Lower Lydd was a magical district, hidden the way their home in the Hollow had been, with Lydd proper containing the Muggles. Lily liked it. Lots of children and families, some Muggles close enough that it reminded her of her own childhood, and the magical community reminding her of why James and she had settled in Godric's Hollow when they married. Technically, she didn't need to work, they had James' money, and taking care of Harry felt like her job now (_it should have been her job the whole time)_. She had thought that she would teach Harry the way she always had, until Harry had convinced her otherwise.

"There's a school," he said one night over dinner. He had taken to riding his bicycle down their road and back every afternoon, Lily watching from the window as he pedaled back and forth, mumbling to himself. At first she'd been worried about what he was mumbling - was he crying, out there where she couldn't hear? - but she'd cast an eavesdropping charm (_one of Sev's_) and heard "Well I don't care if you are an evil dragon, me and Wyvern can take you, charge!" and tried to stop worrying. He was a boy who'd had a bad time (_whose fault?_) but he was a boy, all the same.

"Pardon?" she said, spooning more peas onto his plate. Harry shrugged and tried to spear a few on his fork.

"There's a school. In the town. Jacob told me."

"Who's Jacob?"

"My new friend. He lives in town."

"Lower Lydd, or Lydd proper?" They'd talked about the difference. People in Lydd didn't even know there was a Lower Lydd.

"Proper. We rode bikes today."

Lily frowned. She hadn't noticed anyone else riding bikes on the road. She had Harry warded six ways to Sunday, but still. She should have noticed. She'd grown complacent.

"That sounds fun. What's he like?"

"Nice. He's my age too. He's been going to the school for two years already." Harry shot her a significant look over his fishfingers.

"Oh?"

"He says it's brill. That's brilliant," Harry translated. She smiled. "He has two sisters and a snake. They go to the school too. Not the snake, the sisters." He messed with his fork for a moment, then looked up at her. "He asked if I'd be at the school, when it starts."

Lily took a sip of water, then put the cup down. "Well. What did you say?"

"I said I'd never been to school and he said it was illegal."

"You've been home schooled, darling. It's not illegal."

"Is that a Muggle law, that you have to go to school?"

"No, it's - it's a wizard law as well, but it's all right, because we've been homeschooling you."

Harry traced a finger around the edge of his plate. "Am I still home schooled?"

"Well. We'd have to talk about that."

Harry looked at her expectantly, and she realized he wanted to talk about that now.

"We - I don't know, duck. I don't know anything about this school."

"It's called Marsh Mills," Harry said promptly. "Jacob says all the other schools are rubbish, but not Marsh Mills. They play football and he has a teacher named Mrs. Quick and there are loads of kids in his year. He says they have classes in everything. Like science and maths and reading. He says his teacher has them read two books a month and they write about them."

"That sounds nice," Lily said. "If you really want to go to a school, Harry - "

"I really want to go to Marsh Mills," Harry said, then ducked his head. "Sorry."

Lily looked at Harry, almost at a loss. Harry never talked back, not like that, not to her. The tone was bordering on rude, Dudley at his most polite. If there hadn't been that little cringe, that immediate apology, she'd have reprimanded him. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. They sat that way for a moment, then Harry peeked up at her through his fringe and said again, "Sorry."

"It's all right, love." Lily reached out, smoothed at his hair, and Harry relaxed a little bit, picked up his fork, but didn't start eating again.

"Well - you wouldn't want to go to a magical school?" Harry didn't say anything, just started to twirl his fork around in his hands. "There'd be other children there who'd go on to Hogwarts with you, in a few years, children like you - " She thought of the comfort of Sev on the train with her, the way that he had held her hand before she went up to the Hat. She cleared her throat.

Harry looked at her as if asking permission to speak, then spoke, softly. "I'm not like them. I'm different." He reached up and tried to flatten his bangs over his scar. And Lily thought, you are, but only in the best way. You are different and kind and smart, you are mine and I would never want you any other way. But she didn't say any of it. That wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to be the same, and that was something that he would never be, for reasons other than the scar on his forehead.

"You'll be different at the muggle school too, though. You'd have to hide who you are."

Harry looked up at her. "I'm good at hiding," he said.

Lily cleared her throat again. Then once more. Harry took that as permission to keep talking.

"They wouldn't know just from looking at me. I'd be good, I really would. I'd get to learn more about lamps and cars and read Muggle books and do _Muggle maths_ -" The reverence in his tone at Muggle maths almost made Lily smile. "And I could have friends, maybe, maybe Jacob could be my friend, for real. And it's not like Hogwarts, we come home at the end of lessons every day, he promised." Harry's eyes were enormous behind his specs. "I wouldn't go if I couldn't come back, Mum."

Lily did smile at that. "I'm glad. I'd miss you."

"They come back every day for tea, Jacob said. And then they leave after breakfast. And they don't go on the weekends, either."

"Well - I'll look into it, all right?"

Harry sat bolt upright in his seat. "You mean it? Really? I might?"

"We'll see, love, all right? I have to do a little research, make sure it's the right school for you."

"Jacob wouldn't lie."

"No, of course not, darling," Lily said, inwardly laughing at Harry's fierce Hufflepuff defense of a boy he'd met six hours ago. "But he's different than you. We'd have to make sure it would be all right that you didn't know what they learned the last two years, and that they have room for you. We'd have to make sure it was safe."

Harry's fork went clattering to the ground, and he looked at her with terror before diving under the table to get it. "Harry? Are you all right?"

Harry nodded, very fast. "Sorry." He picked up his fork and rubbed it on his shirt with shaky hands. "Sorry, I - it was an accident?"

"Of course it was. Here, sit down. It's all right, I'll get you a new one." Lily summoned one from the sideboard and watched as Harry started to pick at the knee of his new Muggle trousers. "Here you are." Harry took the fork, but didn't eat. "What's wrong, duck? Aren't you hungry?"

Harry nodded, then poked at a fishfinger. Without looking at Lily, he said, "I thought we were safe now. You said."

"We are."

"Oh." Harry pulled his hands away and folded them, strangely formally, in his lap. She could see one finger scratching at the inside of his palm. "But - school isn't."

"It might be. I'd just have to make sure."

Harry nodded again, then asked, in a very tiny voice, "Do Muggle teachers get...cross?"

"Well, everyone gets cross sometimes," Lily said, a little confused.

Harry shook his head. "No, I mean - do they have, uhm, tempers?" His hands clenched tighter in his lap, and he said, in a tone that was trying very hard to be casual, "Like Da - erm, Severus?"

Lily felt her stomach plunge to her toes. "Oh, Harry, no. No, no, I just meant -" How could she explain she wasn't worried about the teachers hurting him, just about a deranged dark wizard hexing his way in and kidnapping him? "We are safe. I'm sure the school is safe. It would just be to make sure." She reached out and took his hands, which felt small and clammy in hers and almost too still. "I would never let you go anywhere unsafe," she said, trying not to feel like the worst kind of liar as she said it.

Harry nodded, still not looking at her. She took away his plate and offered him his dessert, treacle tart, even though he hadn't finished his supper, but he did no more than pick at it before excusing himself. He went straight to bed, and when she went in to read a story, he was curled into a ball under the covers. That night, he had a nightmare - the first he'd had since they'd left Hogwarts. He never woke up, just lay in bed whimpering as Lily lay next to him, stroking his hair, wishing that her presence would wake him up, would calm him down. But it didn't.

In the morning, they lay there, Harry's head fit comfortably under her chin, both awake but too tired to move. Lily smoothed at his hair, even more mussed than normal with sleep-induced cowlicks. They lay there in silence for a moment - she wondered if it was wrong, the way their most comfortable times recently seemed to be when they said nothing to each other - and then Lily began to speak.

"I went to Muggle primary school, you know."

Harry jerked his head around, goggled at her the way he had when she'd said she could ride a bike. Her childhood seemed magic to him, a thought she found almost beautiful in the too-bright morning sunlight. It had been magic. Everything was simpler then.

"I used to ride my bike there," she said, almost teasingly, and Harry looked like she had announced she was the queen and Merlin combined.

"Did you have friends? Like Jacob?"

"I had lots of friends," she said, trying not to think about the friend she'd liked best of all.

"Did you have just one teacher? Jacob says he only has one teacher."

"Yes - "

"For the whole time?"

She laughed. "No, one a year. A different one every year." She smoothed at his head again, gently, feeling the warmth and the delicate bones of his skull. "What's the name of Jacob's teacher?"

"Mrs. Quick."

"We'll ask if you can be in that class, all right?"

Harry threw his arms around her neck so hard they both banged into the headboard. Lily laughed and tried to detach herself from the tangle of limbs and the too-small bed, but Harry clung to her, laughing himself, a sound that almost took her breath away. But she knew if she stopped and really took proper notice the moment would end, so instead she let Harry dangle from her neck as she stood up.

"All right then, monkey. Breakfast, do you think? Eggs all right, or will you only eat bananas today?"

As Harry, giggling, made tiny monkey noises, he settled instinctively onto her, knees curling around her back and fingers latching behind her hair, making sure she wouldn't drop him. Lily felt his weight in her arms, a weight that felt right, and picked her way out of his room and into the kitchen. It was time to start the day.


End file.
